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On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 2:27 AM, Julien <> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm having problems when typing the up/down arrows in the Python 2.4
> interpreter (exact version: Python 2.4.6 (#1, Mar 3 2011, 15:45:53)
> [GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5664)] on darwin).
>
> When I press the up arrow it outputs "^[[A" and when I press the down
> arrow it outputs "^[[B".
>
> I've google it and it looks like it might be an issue with the
> readline not being installed or configured properly. Is that correct?
> If so, how can I fix this issue?
>
> Many thanks.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Julien
> --

Which readline package should I install? I've tried with 'pip install
py-readline' but that package doesn't seem to exist. I've tried with
'pyreadline' (without the dash) but that didn't fix the issue.

As I stated above, py-readline is for if you're using Macports, which
is a package manager for Mac OS X. If you installed Python through
some other means, I'm not sure why you don't have readline installed
already, because it should be built with the rest of the Python
modules.

In article
<AANLkTimrz_=>,
Benjamin Kaplan <> wrote:
> As I stated above, py-readline is for if you're using Macports, which
> is a package manager for Mac OS X.

.... in which case you probably want:

sudo port install py-readline
> If you installed Python through
> some other means, I'm not sure why you don't have readline installed
> already, because it should be built with the rest of the Python
> modules.

For releases prior to Python 2.6 and Python 3.2, to build the Python
readline module, you need to have installed a local version of the GNU
readline library, a library which is not included in Mac OS X. Starting
with Python 2.6 and with a deployment target of Mac OS X 10.5 or higher,
the Python readline module will be automatically linked with the
Apple-supplied BSD editline (libedit) library.

P.S to Julien: Python 2.4 is *really* old now and is no longer supported
by the Python developers. It probably won't build correctly on current
OS X 10.6 without some help. Python 2.7.1 and Python 3.2 are the
current releases.

On Mar 25, 6:35 pm, Ned Deily <> wrote:
> In article
> <AANLkTimrz_=>,
> Benjamin Kaplan <> wrote:
>
> > As I stated above, py-readline is for if you're using Macports, which
> > is a package manager for Mac OS X.
>
> ... in which case you probably want:
>
> sudo port install py-readline
>
> > If you installed Python through
> > some other means, I'm not sure why you don't have readline installed
> > already, because it should be built with the rest of the Python
> > modules.
>
> For releases prior to Python 2.6 and Python 3.2, to build the Python
> readline module, you need to have installed a local version of the GNU
> readline library, a library which is not included in Mac OS X. Starting
> with Python 2.6 and with a deployment target of Mac OS X 10.5 or higher,
> the Python readline module will be automatically linked with the
> Apple-supplied BSD editline (libedit) library.
>
> P.S to Julien: Python 2.4 is *really* old now and is no longer supported
> by the Python developers. It probably won't build correctly on current
> OS X 10.6 without some help. Python 2.7.1 and Python 3.2 are the
> current releases.
>
> --
> Ned Deily,
>

Thank you Ned and Benjamin, and sorry for the confusion

I did install python2.4 using Mac Ports, and as you've suggested I've
just installed py-readlines using Mac Ports as well, and it now works!

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